Except for the “races” and “hybridizing” of them.
Genetic variance is desirable for reproduction?
Symmetry is a sign of good genetics?
No fuckin’ duh.
But the whole races talking point is mad bullshit, and makes the people involved sound like rank amateurs.
Remember a lot of these articles are written so a layperson can understand them. I’ve known a few non-racist but very ignorant people who still think the mixing of different ethnic groups actually weakens the gene pool.
Sciance is dee devil! The devil wears a lab coat! The devil uses test tubes to create dinosaur bones and put pornoawgrophee on the intarnets! :tup:
Still a skeptic of the whole “Dark Energy” premise and nebulous definition, as I am also indifferent about string theory. This looks like it is at least moving the right direction to get some real answers surrounding catalyzed cosmic inflation.
I do eventually expect Dark Energy to go the way of the ether, but the whole ancient acoustics thing (sounds like a History Channel special) might figure into the better physics that is somewhere just beyond our current reach.
It has always been my theory that the missing or “dark” matter in the universe are probably protostars and rogue planets in space.
The missing matter was stolen by Loki. He’s now storing it up to build a shed in the third dimension, in which he’ll store his starion-drive lawnmower and old pornos he doesn’t need anymore, but still can’t bring himself to part with. :tup:
Scientific American: homophobes may be hidden homosexuals.
In other words, the “duh” heard around the world.
Particle accelerators’ search for nature’s hidden dimensions comes up empty
In the lab as I type this.
Where’s the neuroscience and neuroengineering love?
It has a lot of potential, the noninvasive brain computer interface (BCI). Note, I cannot have read their paper yet, but it is free and I will look at it later.
However, flying a helicopter seems like a bad application at the moment, and yes I know it was a video game. It is the regular practice of any pilot to imagine possibilities before performing them. This is the case because most of the time pilots have a very large amount of time to make a decision. It would be a difficult problem to separate imagination from reality in a BCI control system. Therefore I would be interested to see follow on work with more skilled pilots and more difficult tasks.
Seems “reality” has much grander surprises than basic string theory.
I believe the goal of the virtual helicopter simulation in BCI2000 was to use multiple EEG signals for multi-dimensional control rather than the former 2D cursors that you would usually see in noninvasive systems.
I’m not sure if the tuning processes that BCIs perform are even capable of handling a real pilot’s decisions right now. Common intention-generated brainwaves which don’t require training can only result in ~10 bits per minute due to the averaging, integration etc. Invasive systems are showing promise though
This is a pretty handy review that I recently read if anyone’s interested.
As for the problem of reality, we have actually demonstrated that BCI control is intention based, and it is most likely creating an additional channel of motor control. The wiring between the basal ganglia and the cortex is involved with learning BCIs the same way it is involved in learning procedural tasks. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7389/full/nature10951.html)
crazy lady cures people with energy pellets
[media=youtube]kA6rUU0K9xE[/media]
^ Please, this is the SCIENCE thread.
Back to Science:
[media=vimeo]39784233[/media]
Behold! Look at the biodiversity found in but a drop of pond water!
Well, let’s talk about homeopathy from the scientific view.
We know homeopathic treatments are not valid medicine, because there have been many trials that have investigated their efficacy as such. The overwhelming trend in the results is that they are no more effective than placebos. Homeopathy has been around for over 200 years. It has had had more than enough time to prove the medical claims that surround it, which it hasn’t done. The only rational conclusion is that it has no basis in medical science; no curative properties whatsoever.
That said:
One interesting thing that I think isn’t given much thought is the power of the placebo effect. Typically, it is thought of only as a means of ruling out which proposed treatments are biologically effective and which are not–that is, whether the treatment has a measurable effect on your physical condition (i.e. proven medicine) or whether it produces a sense of well-being without improving your physical condition (i.e. placebo). With a little imagination, the placebo effect can be repurposed as a tool to manipulate a patient’s (or even one’s own) sense of well-being to make the recovery process more bearable.
Therein lies the oft-overlooked utility of all kinds of B.S. ranging from homeopathy to crystals to tea leaves or whatever. Their effects are often dismissed because they occur entirely in the mind. I would argue that effects that occur in the mind are useful and usable. If you’re a cancer patient undergoing treatment that makes you feel constantly sick and tired, wouldn’t you jump at the chance to take a sugar pill, rub a crystal, burn incense–to do anything–if it gave you the feeling of improved well-being?
“The effect is in your mind” is a reasonable statement. “The effect is merely in your mind” shows the inward creep of unscientific bias. The former dismisses the ability of something to affect anything outside of your mind. The latter dismisses the importance of anything that affects your mind exclusively. In my experience, a lot of people pay lip service to the mind’s role in their sense of well-being while simultaneously showcasing hints of this bias.
There are multiple issues with this approach. One is that anybody can do it for themselves, without special training or resources. I’m sure we’ve all seen the episode of The Office when Dwight psyches himself up by listening to Motley Crue. Motley Crue is Dwight’s placebo. The effect is to boost his capability as a salesman. Is it irrational of him to draw a link between Motley Crue and his ability to make a sale? I don’t think so. I think he rationally understands that he is deliberately holding an irrational belief in order to access the desirable effects that holding that belief can have for him.
So homeopaths, horoscope writers, and purveyors of crystals have no special service to offer, at least, not one worth paying for. This leads to the second problem:** these people typically make special claims to justify their own existence, then charge people for their services on the basis of those claims.** For example, homeopaths might claim that their treatments can do the same stuff that science-based medicine does. Whether they themselves are aware of it or not (I’m sure many homeopaths believe wholeheartedly in what they do), they are perpetrating a scam. They are selling you something that doesn’t do what they say it does.
If you can cook up an inert pill or rub a lamp in your house to make yourself feel better when you’re sick, or more confident on a date, or smarter when you’re having a conversation with your professor… why not do it? It is essentially a mental exercise in the form of a ritual behavior. Nothing special, exotic, paranormal, or supernatural about it. If it works, it works. Just don’t let anybody tell you that it’s something that only they can do for you, or that you have to pay for it.
The only reason I’m nattering on about this is that I want to disentangle a few issues that regularly get confused: alternative “medicine”, con artistry, and the mind’s effect on one’s sense of wellness. The first two are part and parcel of any discussion about pseudoscience. The third is, I think, woefully misunderstood.
[media=youtube]2k-Y-q00zxU[/media] (5 part vid)
‘For Naruto Fans:’
I like in the 3rd vid where Tesla comes up with the ultimate weapon of energy and splits it up between 5 or so nations (Tesla = Sage of Six Paths lol). Tesla ultimate weapon of energy dealing with frequencies/waves…and in Naruto they are described as forms of pure chakra/energy. And Chakras are generally described as energy at certain frequencies. It’s more funny because there’s other connections of concepts in Naruto relating to some other aspects of conspiracy theories that I see
Some of the homeopathy stuff sounds silly to me (for now at least) but who knows. I think the problem when using the pill form of energy healing, whether it’s the energy in the capsule or the person consciously letting his energies flow to heal (‘placebo’ effect), is that it depends on whether the person can let his energy flow correctly or not (whether they know they’re doing that or not). The energy blockage that can cause some issues would still be happening even if the energy in capsule form does work, it will still be impeded by the person (un) consciously causing these energy disruptions.
I’ve been researching (more like google-searching) a lot of different subjects recently and some subjects I’ve been researching for quite a while. Slowly the stuff I was looking up for healing some of my mental/emotional ‘issues’, which came from a couple different subjects and views/variations of subjects, started to click. But now more and more of other things I’ve been engrossed in recently, including more science related things (especially a lot of it lost/hidden to history), are also clicking and relating to everything else and how just about all of it involves vibrations/waves/undulations of energy
emotions, consciousness, higher consciousness/awareness, chakras, ego, third eye/pineal gland, mental (and sometimes physical) ‘issues’, humans’ true potential, controlling weather/minds, conspiracy theories (of different levels [from relatively low to do with what’s more commonly discussed now all the way to reptilian creatures from another vibrational dimension], though now-a-days I think some lower level CTs are more in peoples accepted view of reality), string theory, reality, wave particle duality, imagination, intelligence, creativity, personality, positive disintegration, current issues/history/science, hidden/‘lost’ (destroyed) history/science, everything with tesla da gawd, etc. (too many fucking tabs open) and including all kinds of related and inner subjects within these sometimes wider subjects. I’ve seen some possible connections throughout in certain ways but definitely one of the most consistent mention in all of these is vibrations/waves/undulations/frequencies of energy (or sometimes light or sometimes (which I think is the main point) essence/what makes up everything in our reality).
actually a lot of it is just information from many different areas (some branching and some quite totally unrelated [though I guess the connection ends up making them related]) saying the same thing though sometimes in a different way. Like I’m sure Kazimierz Dąbrowskierz never knew of chakra/energy healing regarding commonly mislabeled negative emotions (which either outright get labeled as various mental ‘illnesses’ or the perception/restriction of these energies get labeled as such as well) but they are basically saying the same thing. and other things they are saying relate with just about everything else in ways that I’m still sifting through in my head and finding (just started finding these recently after I made the break-through last week in my working on my psyche/spirituality through study of mind related subjects and study/practice of meditation/reflection/awareness/mindfulness/etc.) though at this point I’m making up some of my own theories/possible relations and googling and seeing info from different fields saying the same thing that I was guessing, filling in the dots in the things I’m thinking of.
haha sorry for all the mind dribble but I just want to put it down. I’ve been feeling like the really inquisitive/creative kid I was when I was young before it was crushed out as commonly happens due to TPTB’s grip on the world. not only drastic changes in my psyche issues (which I say aren’t really issues), but beliefs, and creativity/curiousness/access to my old knowledge (including memories for healing purposes and just info I’ve crunched). though I guess this is now getting more personal sorry lol
Attempting to attach such a thing as “energy healing” to a physical explanation just overcomplicates and obfuscates what’s really going on. You can think of energy flow as an aid to your imagination for meditative techniques or whatever, but it resides purely in the realm of metaphor rather than medicine.
Your mental state affects the way you construct your reality. That is why placebos, laying of hands, etc. can do what they do. If your leg hurts, you can Jedi yourself some healing energy and it may very well ease the pain, but understand that it is an imaginative exercise. It is tempting to associate it with some kind of physical phenomenon, but to accept that is to leave the boundaries of rationality and to become easy prey for hippies and con artists.